Aura Radius is way too short

"Read me out" before you answer please.

I got a Witch and a Ranger which I'm playing with my friends, a Duelist and a Templar. They got auras.

But in order for me to benefit from their auras, I need to stay very close to them. Too close! Not to mention they move fast all over the place and I have to like... attach myself with a rope to them.

Aura radius should be bumped up with at least 50%.

Am I the only one who believes this?

If you spend points in your passive tree, you can double your aura range. Increasing the qaulity of the gem, and\or leveling the gem also increases the range.

Yes, but those two points in the Passive tree aren't located conveniently for any character, is that true?

Also, increasing the quality of a gem is hard: the Prism is quite a rare item as far as I saw.

I agree. The auras are mostly self serving buffs as they are.

They certainly could use a small buff to the base value.

Yeah, so far support characters are not viable, at least IMO because of the short range of auras

To be effective with aura's, you will need to spec into it, like everything else.

There is also an increased aoe support.
If auras aoe was sufficient from the start, everything made to improve it would be useless.

I don't think radius should be the thing you improve with gem quality and passives. The actual strength of the effect would make more sense. The current method makes it far too difficult to spec a support role. It's hard enough to get people to play support characters in multiplayer RPGs without requiring expensive item upgrades and specific passive choices just to be viable. Instead of auras being one more of many elements you can mix and match to customize your character and playstyle, you pretty much have to either go dedicated aura bitch or treat them as self buffs.

Does anyone actually enjoy the gameplay element of having to stay within aura range of a party member in games like this? Personally, I find it frustrating without being interesting.

I have also got the feeling and now I know I am not alone.

IMO, Aura should be matched with following standards:

low level Aura: enough for other melee chars fighting close to you.

high level (but not proficient in) Aura: enough to affect all chars that fight in your screen and sight range.

an aura expert: being a true leader, he frequently checks map to locate himself in the center of war, hence the range should be even enough to cover the guys outside of his sight.

Of course different types of aura could have their range difference but I think this should at least apply for those very basic ones.